


Without Light

by Codee21



Series: IronStrange Bingo 2019 [3]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brain Damage, Bugs & Insects, Christine Palmer is too good for this world, Coma, Consequences, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurts So Good, IronStrange Bingo 2019, IronStrange Gift Exchange, Irony, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mild Innuendo, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, POV Stephen Strange, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie) - Freeform, Self-Sacrificing Tony Stark, Stephen Strange Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 15:03:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18346082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Codee21/pseuds/Codee21
Summary: When Tony is injured in a fight to save New York, Stephen finds himself facing the most difficult decision of his life: should he save his fiancé, and risk the rest of the world in the process?‘He had never prayed for a nightmare before. He had never prayed for anything before. Yet Stephen now found himself silently begging any higher power who would listen to send a sign that he was dreaming, that he was tossing and turning in their bed with Tony safely asleep beside him.It was all a dream. It had to be. The alternative was unthinkable.’





	Without Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cutebutpsyco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutebutpsyco/gifts).



> Written for the IronStrange Gift Exchange - I hope you like it juls!!!
> 
> I’m also using this for the “Power with a Price” space on my IronStrange Bingo card, for reasons you shall understand by the end
> 
> Shoutout to [turtle_abyss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/turtle_abyss/pseuds/turtle_abyss%E2%80%9D%20rel=)  
> for betaing and to [CJtheWeeb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CJtheWeeb/pseuds/CJtheWeeb) for fangirling about brains with me.

Stephen laughed at the image on the screen.

The sound was bitter, and it tasted bitter as it escaped from his mouth.

“Of course,” he said. “I should have known.”

“Stephen, why are you laughing? Should I - is it good news?”

Rhodey’s voice echoed in his ears. Stephen heard the words, the confusion and worry and _hope_ that lay beneath the surface, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak. He prayed that Christine would take pity and answer for him.

 

He stared at the white circle on his fiancé’s CT scan until its borders began to blur, until the image remained even when he closed his eyes. As its accusing glow slowly faded from behind his closed lids, Stephen began to perform calculations in his head. When he arrived at the answer, an even 12.70 ccs, his laughter grew. It clawed its way up from his chest, now, leaving his breathing jagged. Tears pricked at his eyes.

“Unfortunately… it isn’t good news, James. Tony’s hemorrhaging. His brain is bleeding, in a few different places. Most of the bleeds are small and in non-critical areas, and with careful monitoring we would be able to treat those non-operatively. But that bigger one Stephen’s focused on is… more concerning.”

“How concerning?” was Rhodey’s immediate follow up.

A fresh bout of dark laughter escaped past Stephen's lips. He ran a hand over his face, hating himself for losing control of his own body in front of other people like this. He swiped at his eyes and felt that they were wet.

After a moment’s pause, Christine answered Rhodey’s question softly. “You should call the other Avengers. It would be good for them to come and see him.”

_To say goodbye._

Her unspoken words turned the room’s air to lead. It filled Stephen’s lungs and choked him when he tried to take his next breath. The weight on his chest crushed the next morbid laugh that tried to force itself from his body, turning it to a quiet sob. Though he’d already known what Christine would say, knew better than anyone else in the world how fatal an injury like this would be, hearing the false strength and comfort in her voice hit him hard. It was a tone he’d often heard her use to deliver bad news to patients and their loved ones. The last time he was on the receiving end he’d been in a hospital bed, waking up to discover that his career was over and hands were on fire with pain.

Those scarred fingers shook now as he scrubbed away the tears that had begun to fall down his cheeks.

 

“ **How bad** is it, Christine? What kind of numbers are we talking about here? What are his odds?” asked Rhodey, forever the pragmatist.

“We’ll make him as comfortable as we can but… there’s a lot of blood. 12.7 cubic centimeters.”

For the first time in his life, Stephen wasn’t comforted by the fact that his math had been correct. He’d been hoping desperately that he’d made a mistake. But of course he hadn’t. Medicine - neurosurgery - was the one thing he was ever truly good at.

“It’s in the worst possible spot,” continued Christine. “Right on the edge of his cerebellum. It’s going to keep growing, and when it does it’s going to compress his brainstem. It’ll affect his breathing, his temperature, his heart rate. And it’s starting to block that ventricle right there.” She pointed to a dark spot in the middle of Tony’s brain. “When that happens, he’s going to develop hydrocephalus: cerebrospinal fluid will be trapped and keep building up in his brain. The skull isn’t flexible, and it can’t accommodate that kind of pressure. And so the rest of his brain will be constricted. We could -“ Christine closed her eyes for a moment, “we could put in a shunt to drain the fluid but… we’d just be buying him a little more time. I’m sorry.”

“You’re a surgeon. This is a hospital. Can’t you just go in there and - and stop it?” asked Rhodey. “You could take out the blood.”

“That’s… essentially impossible,” Christine replied. She kept her eyes carefully trained on the tiled floor, avoiding Stephen’s gaze.

 

After a moment, Stephen turned away from her and Rhodey, damp eyes painfully drawn back to the white spot on Tony’s CT. His breath hitched again, and he swallowed down another sob.

They had lost so much time, dancing around one another. Years. Afraid to admit their feelings, playing off attraction as animosity until a near-death accident much like this one had forced their hand.

So many missed opportunities, so many precious moments that had slipped through their fingers like grains of sand in an hourglass. So many seconds, wasted.

And each would haunt him for the rest of his life.

 

“Essentially?” Rhodey’s voice cut through the thoughts swirling in Stephen’s head. “What do you mean essentially? Either you can take it out or you can’t.”

“We could try,” Christine hedged, “but there’s only one surgeon who has ever successfully removed a hematoma of that size from that location. And he’s … retired.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass if he’s retired. Un-retire him. Stephen can portal him here from whatever Florida golf course he’s hiding out on.”

“It’s not that simple, James.”

“What, do we need to bribe him? Money’s no object. I’m sure that Tony would agree with us using his ridiculously large fortune to save his own damn life.”

“It’s not about money.”

“Then what **would** it take to convince the guy to do the surgery? We can give him tech, or fame -“

“It’s me, Rhodey,” interrupted Stephen, breaking his silence. Bitterness flooded his mouth and voice once more, coating his tongue in a layer so thick that it was difficult to breathe without feeling as if he would choke on it.

He forced his gaze away from the computer screen so that he could look Tony’s closest friend in the eye. “I’m the only one who’s ever saved patients with Tony’s condition. Five patients, to be exact. I was going to present on my technique at a conference that night, before…” he allowed his voice to trail off and held up his hands. “But I never got the chance.”

Rhodey paused. “That does complicate things,” he admitted quietly. “And no one else -“

“I wasn’t the sharing type. Still not, really. I never allowed another neurosurgeon to watch me perform it - not before my case studies were published and there was absolutely no chance they could steal the credit.”

 

For several moments, no one spoke. The silence was oppressive.

 

“The universe has a cruel sense of humor, doesn’t it?” said Stephen finally. “A bit heavy on the dramatic irony, but all good tragedies are. Shakespeare himself couldn’t have written it better.”

 

He turned back to the computer and continued to scroll through picture after picture of his fiancé’s brain with the mouse’s wheel. His hands shook, forcing the little arrow on the screen to zig and zag sporadically, but the images continued to slide by smoothly one after the other.

He stared at the films.

The little white circle stared back from every single frame, taunting him.

 

They had survived so much together. Side by side, they had fought and won battles against Thanos, Mordo, the Chitauri - even their own inner demons. They had successfully grown the ranks of the Avengers and Kamar-Taj, building up the Earth’s defenses to fend off the never-ending series of creatures and beings determined to destroy mankind.

They were both supposed to retire from the hero business, soon; this was going to be their last mission. They had officially quit weeks ago, but when New York was threatened once again they’d joined the fight without a second of hesitation. The invasion was all-heroes-on-deck, life-or-death, and though neither man wanted to continue to risk their own lives or each other’s, neither one could say no when the weight of their dimension hung in the balance.

They were supposed to be married, next month. They’d booked the venue, hired the caterers, sent the invitations. Bought the rings. They were going to start a family together, adopt kids and pets and move far away from New York City, where the people never sleep and the crime never rests. Both of them **needed** to rest, to sleep. They were letting the next generation of superheroes take over - they’d both had enough adventure and adrenaline to last a lifetime.

They’d had such perfect plans.

 

But it was all going to end here. With a puddle of blood the size of a tablespoon.

Tony would never become a father. Stephen would never get to know what he looked like in the black tux they’d sent to have hemmed last week, standing in front of the altar with Rhodey by his side. Would he have cried, when he saw Stephen walking down the aisle? When they finally got to hold their first child?

Stephen would never know.

 

As he continued to stare at the screen, Stephen felt his earlier despair slowly melt into anger.

He’d never hated anything or anyone more than he hated that blood pooled in his fiancé’s brain. Not Dormammu, not Mordo, not even Thanos. It was senseless. It was cruel. It was the luck of the draw, and the love of his life was going to die because once again he had laid down his life to save the world. This time, he had lost the gamble, and the universe was about to cash in the chips.

Tony was going to die.

 

_(Unless…)_

A small voice planted the seed of an incredibly bad idea in the back of his head.

Stephen tried to wipe his mind clear, like he’d been trained to do at Kamar-Taj for meditation and astral projection.

He couldn’t afford to have those kinds of thoughts. Wong had taken over the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme, now, but Stephen had still made an oath to protect the universe. He was no longer a hero, but if the fate of the world came to rest on his shoulders he was willing to pay whatever price it demanded of him.

_(Even if it means letting Tony die?)_

 

“Will you still try to take it out, Christine?” asked Rhodey quietly, making the voice in the sorcerer’s head grow mercifully quiet. “If Stephen goes in with you and talks you through it?”

Christine looked over to him - her former colleague and former lover, the man whom she now considered to be one of her closest friends.

For a moment, he felt as though her clear blue eyes were staring right through him. She seemed to sense his inner conflict: the voice inside his head whispering dangerous ideas, and the sense of duty that fought to silence it.

“You’re Tony’s medical proxy, Stephen,” she said softly. “It’s your call. You can scrub the case, if you think Nic and I should try.”

 

So many thoughts crowded his mind, shouting over and interrupting and blending into one another. He could barely hear himself think rationally through the din. His anger still simmered underneath it all, causing his hands to shake more than usual, but his voice was surprisingly calm as he answered, “I need to see him.”

Stephen tore his eyes away from the computer screen and focused instead on the soothing blue of Christine’s eyes. He felt Rhodey’s gaze boring into him as well, but he couldn’t bring himself to look Tony’s oldest friend in the face.

“I just… just let me see my fiancé. I want to hold his hand one more time, before I decide whether we should let him die comatose in a hospital bed, or on an operating table with his skull cracked open.”

Christine nooded, seeming to anticipate his answer. “Okay,” she said simply. “I’ll have them prep an OR, in case you make that choice, but it’s up to you. I’m going to head back down to the ER, come find me when you’ve decided. If you take too long, I’ll come find you. And James -“ she turned to the other man standing beside her, “I really do think you should let the rest of the team know.”

“I agree. I’ll put out the word,” said Rhodey, his voice guarded. “If that’s okay with you, Stephen?”

The sorcerer nodded stiffly. No matter the outcome of the next several hours, the Avengers had been Tony’s only real family for over a decade. Their numbers had grown, since then, but no matter how many new members were added the bond running between all of them remained the same. If one of their own was going to die… they deserved to say goodbye.

 

_(But he doesn’t have to die. You can save him.)_

 

Stephen blocked the thought out as quickly as it had appeared. He turned and strode from the room without a word or backward glance, his hard-soled shoes clacking heavily against the tiled floors.

Christine and Rhodey remained silent as he left.

 

~~~

 

Stephen was having a nightmare. This had to be a nightmare.

It had been months since he’d last had one of his PTSD-induced dreams - not since that sweltering summer day when Tony had knelt down on the scalding New York City concrete and asked to be his for the rest of their lives. But now the familiar halls of Metro General made him feel as though he was trapped in one of those nocturnal mental prisons. Their walls and floors were eerily identical to his memories from years ago, down to the scuff marks from sprinted gurneys and abstract watercolors painted in soothing shades. An undercurrent of fear buzzed alongside the quiet hum of fluorescent lights.

He had never prayed for a nightmare before. He had never prayed for **anything** before. Yet Stephen now found himself silently begging any higher power who would listen to send a sign that he was dreaming, that he was tossing and turning in their bed with Tony safely asleep beside him.

 

It was all a dream. It had to be. The alternative was unthinkable.

 

But underneath the veneer of denial, Stephen knew that he was painfully, terrifyingly awake. Anger, bitter humor, desperation, and self-hatred filled him to the tips of his trembling fingers, coursing through his veins alongside the blood pumped by his racing heart. During his recurring nightmares, there was only ever room in his mind for fear.

 

As a surgeon, he’d strode through the halls of Metro purposefully, ostentatiously, filled with self-importance and unshakable confidence. That smugness had been more than shaken, now. Whatever scraps of it had survived the crash now evaporated as he walked dazedly towards his fiancé’s private hospital room.

He felt his boot catch on the ground and he stumbled forward a few steps clumsily. Physical and mental fatigue washed over him, threatening to drag him under as he attempted to regain his footing. It had been a long day.

_A morning spent with Tony between warm silk sheets - the first of what was supposed to be many celebrations of their newly gained free time. Tony had seceded managerial control of Stark Industries, Wong ran the Sanctum and Kamar-Taj, and now both men had officially retired from the Avengers._

Stephen continued down the hall until he reached a crowded bank of elevators. Without breaking stride, he continued past the swarm and instead pushed open the door leading to a narrow staircase. Tony’s room was only two floors up, and he didn’t think he could stomach being stuck in a metal box with other people.

_Several tiring hours spent speaking with their adoption agent. Both he and Tony hated paperwork, hated bureaucracy and red tape, but they were willing to jump through any hoops necessary for them to start the family they so desperately wanted._

After tripping and falling forward on the concrete steps twice, Stephen admitted to himself that maybe he should have taken the elevators after all. He was so tired.

_Long conversations with their wedding planner over lunch to finalize contracts for the florist and the band._

Still, it wasn’t as if the new patches of irritated red skin on his palms would be out of place. He knew that he was bleeding from countless wounds, some larger than others, all of which were only just beginning to clot over. He reeked of sewer water, and was covered in soot from burning skyscrapers. Everyone in New York City was.

_An afternoon with Tony in the workshop, ostensibly to provide medical expertise as the engineer designed his latest in a line of surgical robots. Really, though, he had spent over half of their time gazing at Tony rather than the holographic blueprints._

Finally, he reached the fifth floor. Pushing open the heavy metal door, he took a moment to get his bearings and take a deep breath before making a left and heading down a new stretch of hallway.

_Sitting down in the early evening to help Peter with his homework._

Dread and desperation pressed in on him from all sides, growing with every breath. It felt like he was drowning, lungs burning, every step he took down that hallway resisted by the weight of dark saltwater.

_Cooking dinner together once the boy had left._

Stephen stopped in front of an opaque sliding door. It was labeled “Room 504” in plain silver script. He closed his eyes and took one last shuddering breath before pulling it open and stepping inside.

_But as they lit the long tapered candles on their dining room table, and as the setting sun cast long tapered shadows on the outside world, the electricity in Stark Tower went out with a pop. Both men sat without speaking for several moments, waiting for the backup generators to kick in, but the penthouse remained still and dark. A chill ran down Stephen’s spine as stood to look out over the balcony and saw that the rest of Manhattan was equally black. Cars were halted on the highways, as if every motorist in the world had chosen the same moment to run out of gas. The high-speed bullet train that Tony had helped design screeched to a halt on its magnetic tracks, sending sparks flying into the rapidly darkening sky. In the distance, an airplane descended far too fast to be intentional._

After several long moments of standing on the room’s threshold, Stephen forced himself to open his eyes.

 

If not for the steady waves being recorded on Tony’s heart monitor, he would have been sure that his fiancé was already gone.

 

Tony had always been a dynamic person. His body moved with every word he spoke, and god knew he never stopped talking. His face was expressive, his eyes even more so, and the shape of his mouth told a story of its own even as it twisted silver-tongued persuasions or scathing retorts. Even in sleep, Tony was constantly in motion. He tossed and turned, jerked and twitched, always restless unless Stephen held him close to his chest and wound his scarred fingers through chocolate hair.

Now… Tony was empty. The utter stillness of his body was unnatural.

Stephen’s breath hitched. The spark of life that had drawn him to the other man since the moment they’d met was gone. Tony’s face was as pale as the dull white sheets he lay on, making its lacework of cuts and mottled bruises and ashes from burning skyscrapers all the more striking. His whiskey brown eyes were closed, and Stephen knew that if he pried their lids open they would be unbearably dim and lifeless, with blown pupils as proof of the war going on inside his skull. The hands that Stephen had seen build miracles from bolts and wires laid limp against faded blankets.

_With a surge of foreboding, Stephen turned to Tony and saw that the blue glow of the nanite housing on his chest had died alongside the rest of the city’s technology._

_“Any idea on how to turn the lights back on, Merlin?”_

_“I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” said Stephen, closing his eyes to better recall magical texts involving energy and power._

_“Shit,” swore Tony suddenly. “Well you’d better think faster, sweetheart, because it’s starting to look a little too ‘Empire of the Ants’ out there for my taste.”_

_The wizard opened his eyes to see why his fiancé was referencing a 1970s creature feature. “Shit,” he agreed._

_Though sunlight was fading fast, both men could see dark swarms of … something… crawling up from the sewers. As a few began to scale the tower from the streets below, Stephen managed to get a better look. The invaders were ugly, skittering insectoids the size of very large house cats, moving swiftly through the city on sets of twelve spiny legs and two pairs of glistening grey wings._

_“Leptaniillinae,” ground out Stephen between gritted teeth._

_“Bless you? That was a sneeze, right?”_

_“They come from the Formicidae dimension. Good news, there’s a spell to stop them and turn the power back on.” Stephen demonstrated by curling his fingers into a complex shape, putting the insides of his wrists together, and twisting. The apartment’s power surged, turning on the lights as well as all its electronic appliances. Tony’s nanites flickered back to life._

_“Bad news,” continued Stephen, shouting over the blare of the TV, radio, and blender, “I need to get to the sewers.”_

_Tony sighed. “Guess we’re not as retired from the hero biz as we thought, honey.” He tapped the glowing triangle in the center of his chest and grimaced as the Iron Man suit began to form around him. “Let’s round up the gang.”_

_“One more mission,” said Stephen, performing another spell to change into his sorcerer robes, “and then we are getting out of this godforsaken city before something else decides to attack it.”_

_“One more mission,” Tony agreed. He reached out with a metal-encased hand to gently grab his lover’s, raising it to his lips. “And then it’s just you and me.” He paused, then added almost as an afterthought, “And Tyler.”_

_For a moment, Stephen stood stock still, too shocked to move or speak. “The paperwork went through?” he finally managed to ask, his voice small and breathless._

_“Got the email less than an hour ago.” Tony’s smile lit up his entire face, and Stephen was half-surprised it didn’t light up the rest of Manhattan. “We’re starting a family, Doc. But first, let’s go kick some arachnid ass.”_

 

Stephen could still sense the ghost of that kiss tingling on the back of his hand, the imagined brush of heat sending a sharp spike of pain through his heart. If he had known that chaste peck was the last time he would ever truly feel the warm pressure of Tony’s lips, he would have stolen a moment longer to savor it.

_(It doesn’t have to be the last.)_

The voice in the back of his mind returned, stronger and louder now that it no longer had competition from Christine and Rhodey. The room’s silence was punctuated only by Stephen’s own ragged breaths, and in that unbearable, deathly quiet, the voice flourished.

_(You know he doesn’t have to die. You can save him.)_

He couldn’t.

He… shouldn’t.

But oh God, he wanted to…

And he couldn’t forget the idea, now that it had taken root in his mind.

 

_Stephen choked on the stench of New York City’s sewers as he slayed another group of Leptaniillinae that were flying in the faces of their small group of fighters. The repulsive creatures were everywhere, climbing over the walls around them and attacking from all sides with sharp pinchers. His spell lit the tunnel with orange light, momentarily stunning the beasts, but as the last trickle sparks faded from his fingertips the bugs redoubled their efforts._

_“Nice shot, sweetheart,” said Tony as he blasted two more of the bugs in the face. “But as much as I’m enjoying my new career as an exterminator, please tell me we’re at least a little close to where we need to be?”_

_“Shouldn’t be too much farther,” shouted Clint over the cacophony of twanging bowstrings, firing guns, and discharging repulsors. “Their nest should be in the deepest part of the sewers.”_

_“Which is where, exactly?”_

_“Half a mile up ahead,” replied Natasha. “Just keep holding the rear a little longer, Stark.”_

_“Sure thing! It’s what I do best - just ask Stephen.”_

 

Once again, Stephen felt his eyes burn. He didn’t try to stop the tears from falling, this time. He hadn’t wanted to appear weak in front of Rhodey and Christine, hadn’t wanted to walk through the halls with wet cheeks and bloodshot eyes. But now, he was dismally, heart-breakingly alone. The man he loved was lying comatose in a hospital bed less than five feet in front of him, and looking at him made Stephen feel more alone than he would if the room were empty.

 

_The Leptaniillinae nest was a black, grotesque, writhing mess of thousands of the insectoids and their larvae. The air was filled with the sound of scurrying legs and the scents of sewer water and rotten meat._

_When the interdimensional beasts spotted the small group of Avengers, they swarmed to defend their territory and their young. The heroes fought back._

_“I need to get higher - cover me!” Without waiting for a response from the others, the Cloak of Levitation quickly flew him to the top of the highest slick sewer wall. Before he was even standing fully upright, Stephen put his wrists together and began to perform the intricate motions that had brought the electricity in Stark Tower back to life an hour ago._

 

_He was so focused on the spell that would save New York City that he was blind to the creatures behind him._

 

No, there was no longer any reason to continue pretending that even some small facet of him was calm or steady, no reason to continue suppressing the pain and fear and anger and bitterness and desperation and sense of profound loss that had all started building like a tidal wave the moment he’d first seen that damned CT scan. He stumbled toward the bed, and fell to his knees under the weight of the emotions that were swirling in murky riptides around him.

_(What kind of man would let his lover die without even trying to stop it?)_

That small, self-loathing voice grew louder as it continued to spill poison in his ear.

_(What kind of man wouldn’t do everything he could to save the person he cares most about in the world?)_

Stephen took Tony’s cold, pale hand and raised it to his own chapped lips. His tears smudged the ashes on the other man’s skin, and Stephen could taste their chalky bitterness. His breath hitched when Tony’s arm remained limp even as he clutched it to the point of pain. He was so still, so unnaturally still.

“I’m here,” he whispered. “Baby, I’m here. I love you.”

_(You know he would do it for you. He would do anything to save you.)_

 

_“STEPHEN! MOVE!” Tony’s voice was raw and panicked._

_The sorcerer turned his head at the sound of his name as the last threads of the spell clung to his palms._

_A hand shoved him forward off the side of the wall. The Cloak slowed his descent as he fell._

_Sounds of crunching metal echoed through the tunnel. Tony cried out in pain._

_The lanterns in the cavern began to pop and crackle with newfound energy._

_As one, the insectoids gave out a high-pitched shriek._

_The light flared to life just in time for Stephen to see his fiance hit the ground._

 

_(Don’t you love him enough to do the same?)_

 

As he replayed that last kiss on the balcony of Stark Tower endlessly in his mind, Stephen felt his breathing grow fast and shallow. And as he realized that those beautiful hands that could build miracles from bolts and wires would never hold him again…

 

… Stephen broke.

 

_He pulled himself to his feet and stumbled to his fiance’s side. Tony wasn’t moving. The Iron Man suit was dented and gouged, its helmet reduced to ribbons of metal, torn open like a rusty tin can by the pinchers of the creatures that had tried to attack Stephen._

 

The wave of despair that had been slowly building finally crested and toppled, crashing down onto him in a wall of water too large to swim above. Instead, Stephen felt it drag him under. The weight of it forced the air from lungs in a keening cry of pain. His next jagged inhale burned, and he truly felt that he was drowning, that the imagined foam and seawater were real and filling his lungs.

 

_“Tony?” Stephen couldn’t hear himself over the frantic beating of his own heart._

_“Stephen?” Tony’s eyes were barely open. Anxiety began to kick in, and the rise and fall of his chest grew rapid as he hyperventilated. He reached out blindly for Stephen, who met him halfway and grabbed one hand in both of his own._

_He scanned Tony’s crumpled body, taking inventory of his wounds. The other man’s left leg was bent at an unnatural angle, his left shoulder crushed, and blood was spilling through the suit in places where pinchers had made it through to skin._

_“Stephen? Stephen!” His voice was slurred._

_Dread pooled in Stephen’s stomach as he saw that Tony’s pupils were blown wide._

_Crimson flowed from the back of his head where it had cracked on the cold stone floor._

 

Stephen choked out another sob. His lungs were on fire, and white spots began to dance across his vision. Each bright circle was a twin of the one on Tony’s CT scan, the tablespoon of blood that would kill him.

_(He doesn’t deserve to die.)_

 

_“Shh, sweetheart I’m here,” he said, running trembling fingers over the inside of the other man’s wrist. “I’m right here, you’re going to be okay.”_

_“Stephen I can’t see you. I feel you but I can’t see you, why can’t I see you?”_

_A portal. He needed to portal them to Metro, right now._

 

The force of the water pulled him deeper.

And deeper.

And deeper.

Until Stephen could no longer see any light.

 

_The sorcerer tried to pull away, a deeper sense of urgency to his actions, but his hands were shaking too hard to loosen even Tony’s weak grip._

_“No, no no no, please. Please don’t leave me. I need you, it’s_ **_dark_ ** _.”_

_“Baby it’s okay, I’m here, I’m right here. I need both hands to cast a portal, and we need to get you to the hospital. I won’t leave you, I promise.”_

_“I love you.”_

_“I love you too. But you’re going to be okay,” said Stephen, trying to convince himself as well as Tony._

_Tony’s arm grew slack as his consciousness began to fade. His eyes fluttered shut. “Please. Don’t let go.”_

 

_(You’re too weak to save him.)_

The voice was mocking him, now.

“Shut up,” whispered Stephen brokenly.

_“Stephen I can’t see you.”_

“Shut **up** ,” he growled, voice growing louder.

 _“I need you, it’s_ **_dark_ ** _.”_

_(What is the use of power if you’re too cowardly to use it?)_

“Stop, please.” Stephen begged his mind to be quiet.

_“Please. Don’t let go.”_

_(Will you be able to live with yourself, if you don’t?)_

“SHUT UP!”

He covered his ears in a futile attempt to block out the venom of his own inner voices. The white spots in his vision grew larger, threatening to overwhelm him completely.

He closed his eyes and fell forward to hide his face in the scratchy blankets on Tony’s hospital bed.

 

Stephen stayed that way - sobbing into the blankets covering his fiancé’s unconscious body, fighting through riptides of his own thoughts - for what felt like days, weeks, months. But he knew it couldn’t be that long. Those were units of time that Tony didn’t have left…

… unless Stephen saved him.

The idea that had started as a small voice in the back of his mind was no longer small, and was no longer constrained to a distant corner of his consciousness even as his tears slowed and his breathing grew more even.

He could save Tony.

Was it worth the cost?

Was there anything he **wouldn’t** do for Tony?

 

“Stephen?”

 

Christine’s gentle hands pried Stephen’s own away from his ears. She began to stroke his back comfortingly, and he leaned into the touch. He had been so consumed by his swirling thoughts that he hadn’t even heard her enter the room.

Her grip settled on his shoulder. “Stephen, I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. Neither of you deserve this.”

As much as he hated for anyone to see him this way, the weight of her hand made him feel just a little less alone.

“I could save him,” he whimpered, voice muffled by blankets. The hands that she had freed from his ears fell to clutch the fabric.

There was no point in attempting to conceal any truth from Christine, even if he’d wanted to - she was too stubborn and insightful. They had fought long and hard to get to this point in their friendship, and she knew him almost as well as Tony did. Better, in some ways - she had seen the aftermath of Stephen’s accident and the emotional toll that it had taken on him. She had supported him through struggles that Tony knew of intellectually but was spared from having to experience firsthand.

“I could save him, but I would doom everyone else on Earth.” His voice was thick with tears that had run themselves dry, but somehow Christine seemed to understand him regardless.

He couldn’t see her face, but her voice held steady as she asked, “Are you considering doing it anyway?”

“Yes,” he replied bluntly. “I can’t live without him, Christine.”

“Talk me through it, then. How would you cure him?”

 

After a moment of hesitation, Stephen sat up. He took the tissues that she offered him and roughly wiped at his eyes and cheeks and nose. As he did, he began to speak in a hoarse voice, keeping his gaze carefully trained on the monitor that displayed Tony’s vital signs. “I am going to tell you something that only Tony and the other sorcerers of Kamar-Taj know. Years ago, I bargained with a being known as Dormammu. He is powerful, and ruthless, and rules a place known as the Dark Dimension. He was attempting to take over our world, and he almost succeeded. But with the Eye of Agamotto, I forced him into a deal. He promised to leave the Earth and never return as long as I did the same for his realm.

Stephen took a deep, shuddering breath and closed his eyes for a moment before continuing. His head was pounding, his body was shaking, his face was red and raw, but he continued without sparing himself a second thought. Tony’s head was a ticking time bomb, and so far he had only succeeded in running down the clock. The window of possibility for treating Tony was closing quickly. There was no telling at what moment it would slam shut.

“If I channeled energy from the Dark Dimension, I could use it to make my hands steady. I could perform the surgery, and remove Tony’s hematoma. But if I did, I would void my bargain with Dormammu. Nothing would keep him from destroying our world. He may not take advantage of it today, or tomorrow, but eventually he would come. Now that the Eye has been destroyed, I wouldn’t be able to stop him a second time.”

Stephen turned to where Christine knelt beside him. He wanted to look her in the eye as he spoke his next words.

“So am I a horrible person for still considering it?”

“No,” she said simply. “You love him. It’s only horrible if you follow through. And even then, **you** are not horrible, Stephen. Only your actions would be.”

She moved the hand that still rested on his shoulder to cup his cheek. Her cool palm was a soothing balm against his hot, stinging skin.

“But you can’t do it,” she added quietly, her clear blue eyes boring into his. “You know you can’t.”

“I know I shouldn’t,” he replied on an exhale. “I died thousands of times to save the Earth from Dormammu, and now I’m considering handing it back to him on a silver platter.”

“It does seem counterintuitive.”

“But I don’t know how to live without him, Christine. Without him… I would have lost myself a long time ago.”

“Tony wouldn’t want you to lose yourself now, though. You swore to protect the Earth as Sorcerer Supreme, and even before that you swore an oath to do no harm, Strange. It doesn’t matter that you’re retired from both those jobs - it’s a part of who you are.”

 

Stephen once again felt a dark undercurrent of anger begin to flow beneath his soot-stained skin. He shook off her hand.

“I was perfectly willing to risk my own life to save everyone else’s. I was prepared to die down in that sewer, and if I had I would have been at peace with it.”

Christine met the dangerous edge in his voice without flinching. “And Tony knew those risks too. He’s been in the hero business a lot longer than you have. Don’t you think he knew what you both were getting into, heading off to fight those things?”

“He accepted the possibility that **he** could die. You can’t convince me that he would be accepting of my own decisions, if the situation was reversed.”

“And if it **was** reversed? Would you want him to throw away the world to save you, if you were the one in that bed?”

“It is not the same thing.”

“Why.”

“Because he is **my** world,” Stephen snapped. “He sacrificed himself even though he knew I would rather die than see him die for me. I was the one they were coming for, but he put his own body between them and me and now his body is the one with seven broken bones and a brain that’s doing its best impersonation of a goddamn leaky faucet. When I try to picture my life without him in it, I can’t **breathe**. Every second that I’m in this room, I am drowning on dry land. He’s forcing me to choose between a world without him and a world that Dormammu may destroy at any moment, and it’s tearing me apart.”

The smile that Christine gave him was small and impossibly sad as she took his scarred hands into hers. “Stephen, don’t you know that he feels the same way? I don’t understand Tony as well as I do you, but everyone who sees the way he looks at you knows that **you** are **his** world. I’m sure he saved you because he can’t picture a life without you either.”

“Why did he think it would be any easier for me than him? If he hadn’t jumped in front of me, the Cloak could have pulled me out of the way, or I could have cast something -“

“Tony wasn’t willing to take that risk with your life. He gave up his own for yours. Don’t throw his gift back in his face and hand the Earth to Dormammu just to bring him back. You know he wouldn’t want that.”

“He accepted the risk to his own life, but not the one to mine. He decided that he couldn’t face living in a world without me, without considering that I would feel the same - that I would feel **worse,** because if he died it would be because of me. So why do I have to accept it, now? Why did he get to act without hurting anyone but himself, but my only option is to choose between him and everyone else?”

“Because the universe is cruel. But ‘why’s and ‘what-if’s won’t change anything.” She paused a moment before she quietly continued, “Stephen, you can’t fight or logic or scream your way out of this. Tony is dying.”

 

Stephen had no response. He looked at Christine, who had remained solid as stone even as the churning waves of his emotion crashed over her. Underneath his anger and fear and desperation and grief, he felt a surge of appreciation for the way she was able to ground him with her sincere words, her steady hands, her piercing blue eyes. She had never left his side throughout the years, even though he’d done enough to deserve it many times over. And now here she knelt with him on the cold hospital floor next to what would become his fiancé’s deathbed, consoling him even as he talked about sacrificing her and everyone she cared for just so he could selfishly steal a little more time with Tony.

 

Slowly, Stephen felt his anger begin to ebb. Its tides receded, leaving him feeling small and helpless and wrung-out in their wake.

He couldn’t.

He couldn’t give up the universe for Tony. He couldn’t condemn everyone on the planet he had sworn to protect just because he no longer wanted to live on it.

Here he was, lashing out at Christine, berating Tony even though he would have made the same decision, cursing at the universe for its twisted sense of humor … when Stephen knew that the only person he was truly furious with was himself.

 

Finally, he answered.

“It’s my fault. If I hadn’t been so self-absorbed before my accident, I would have shared the technique. God knows how many other people I’ve put in an early grave, how many of their loved ones I’ve sentenced to this hell, all because I wanted the fame of being the only one who could do the surgery. I was callous, and narcissistic, and now Tony is paying the price.”

“Better late than never to grow a heart, Stephen.”

Christine pushed his hair (Tony had been nagging him to get it cut for weeks) back from where it had fallen in his face. He was grateful that she didn’t try to defend the man he had been back then. Any argument she could raise would ring hollow in both of their ears.

“If I didn’t have a heart, it wouldn’t be hurting so _much_.” His voice cracked on the last word. Tears that he thought had long since dried up returned, falling down his cheeks as his breath hitched into another sob. Christine wrapped her arms around him and gently guided his head to her shoulder. He began to cry in earnest into the coarse material of her scrubs, chest heaving, lungs straining to pull in enough oxygen to keep him from drowning.

 

The sound of the door being thrown open alerted the pair that they were no longer alone.

Stephen jerked away from Christine and spun around on his knees, hands flying into a defensive position, orange sparks dancing across his fingertips.

Through the tears, he could vaguely make out Wong’s face and form.

“How did you know?” he asked his friend.

“Rhodes texted. I came as soon as I could, to give you this.”

Wong pulled a small black velvet box out of the pocket of his robes and offered it up to them.

Stephen hauled his tired body up from the floor, knees and back cracking as he did so. He used the crumpled tissue in his hand to dab at his cheeks and eyes as he took a few shaking steps toward the other man. Wong met him in the middle and carefully pressed the box into his other palm.

“Tiffany’s? You shouldn’t have.” His attempt at a joke took away just a little of the weight pressing down on his shoulders.

He flipped open the hinged lid and saw a pair ornate pendants crafted in tarnished gold. Egyptian hieroglyphs were etched into the faces of both. The writing on the first roughly translated to “body”, and that on the second “spirit”.

Stephen squinted at the necklaces. “Relics?”

“A linked set. Let’s hope that they accept you.”

Wong reached around him to remove the “spirit” necklace from the box. He slipped the chain over Stephen’s head, and Stephen felt the surprising weight of the pendant settle over his heart. As it did, the metal turned cherry red and began to burn him through the thin fabric of his filthy robes.

“Ow?” he looked up at Wong questioningly, who nodded in satisfaction when he saw the result.

“Good. It likes you.”

“Still, ow.”

“It will stop burning once she is wearing the other one.” He gestured to Christine, who had quietly risen and relocated to one of the room’s hard plastic chairs. She stared back at them in surprise.

“Me? But I don’t do magic.”

“Strange doesn’t need you to do magic. He only needs your hands.”

 

Stephen felt his eyes bloodshot eyes widen as they darted between Wong, the pendants, and Christine. After a few moments, they landed on Wong and stayed there. “Possession.”

The other man nodded.

“I didn’t know it was possible.”

“It is possible, but rarely performed. It requires the use of Dark energy… or this pair of relics.”

Stephen’s gaze flitted back to the pendants for a moment before it fixed on Christine. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” she said, understanding filling her eyes as she stood up from her chair with a jolt. “Do it. Possess me, perform the surgery with my body.”

“It won’t be pleasant,” warned Wong. “Two souls are not meant to be housed together in one vessel.”

“I don’t care. I’ll do whatever you need to save Tony, as long as no one has to die.” Her face lit up into a smile as she sprinted out of the room. “I’ll go make sure that OR is ready!”

“And I should get back to the Sanctum. Good luck, Strange.”

 

Wong cast a portal, and with that Stephen was alone with Tony once more. He strode quickly across the room to return to his fiancé’s side, and knelt so that they were at the same level. Taking Tony’s right hand in both of his scarred ones, he raised it to his lips. “I’m going to save you,” he promised once he’d laid the other man’s hand back down on top of the scratchy hospital blanket, their fingers intertwined.

In his mind, he imagined what it would feel like for Tony to squeeze his hand back, remembered what those lips felt like against it, against his own lips, against every inch of his bare skin, because Tony knew every inch of his body and soul.

He’d been given a second chance to feel that warm caress of Tony’s mouth, and the gentle brush of those hands that could build miracles out of bolts and wires. For the first time since he saw Tony’s body hit the stone floor of that godawful sewer, Stephen finally felt like he could breathe. He no longer felt the weight of dark seawater pressing in on him from all sides, his lungs no longer burned, his limbs were no longer heavy. Finally, **finally** , Stephen had fought his way through to the surface with the help of Wong and Christine. He was out of the riptide, he was treading water, he could see the light of the sun - of Tony who had lit up his lonely life.

 

They still had a long way to go, and Tony’s road to recovery wouldn’t be easy. There would be more pain, more tears, more darkness. But Stephen would face it all gladly, because it meant that Tony was still breathing.

 

“I’m not letting go, I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos + comments = life + happiness
> 
> I’m keeping this separate from my current IronStrange series, as this work has a very different feel to it (or at least that was my intention) along with minor character and backstory differences. But if you like this work and want more angsty and fluffy IronStrange goodness, check out “Let’s Make It Count” :)  
> Hope to see you around my page!


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